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“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up:

That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 3:14, 15

Like the serpent that Moses has elevated, the Son of Man will be elevated as well… The West people are not acquainted with the symbolic language of the East ones at all. The culture of the East differs from the culture of the West. You might say that the culture of the East people has been involutionary, i.e. it is descending from above downwards whereas our, the West culture, is evolutionary, i.e. it is ascending from below upwards. Consequently, the methods to comprehend these two cultures have double meaning and those who are not acquainted with this double process often find contradiction. Hence, the contradiction is not in the cultures but in our views.

And so, there are two cultures – culture of the serpent and culture of the Son of Man. Both should be elevated. You might ask what culture may exist in the serpent. In all peoples, the serpent has played the important role of one great culture. In the Bulgarians, it has remained in the legend about the dragons, “One dragon is in love with me, my mother” is mentioned in the Bulgarian folk songs. These are remains of that ancient culture of the east peoples. How can a dragon love? It represents the culture of people who have been descending from the Invisible world downwards whereas people of today are ascending from below upwards. These notes are necessary so that the thoughts I am going to present become clear to you.

Often, people encounter great contradictions in their life. If you wish a nice silk fabric to have a dress made, you will not search for it at some shepherd or at some woman working wool but will search for it at the shopkeeper selling such fabrics. In order to make the nice fabric, so much effort is needed from people to breed the little silkworms, to gather mulberry leaves to them so that they can spin these nice threads and the modern girls can dress up with silk clothes. In this sense, if someone wants a good material they should go to good people – the nice fabrics are there; and if that one wants bad material, they should go to bad people. This is true in Nature as well – roots deal with the soil, with a raw material while branches deal with the better substance. I want to make you think not that some people are good and others are bad. Discussing things in a philosophical way, we should not look at them, as people look at them today, as the Good is Good in a certain proportion and the evil is evil in a certain proportion as well. Not much evidence is needed to prove this true. For example, if your eyes are sound, when you go in the morning out in the sun the view will make a good impression on you. However, if your eyes are sore, the view will make a bad impression on you and you will have to retire to a dark room as doctors often recommend when eyes are sore. So, in this respect light is an evil for people and it should be removed; an obstacle should be put before it until the eyes return to their normal state and start accepting its vibrations. This is how things might be discussed from philosophical point of view but when we come to Life, then it is more difficult.

Everyday people make attempts, everyday you elevate both the serpent and the Son of Man. God took the Jews out of the wilderness so that they elevated this serpent. But this people that had got used to such a culture as the Egypt one, these Jew rich people and aristocrats (though the common people had been making only adobe for a long time), Moses had to lead them through the wilderness for forty years in order to make them a bold and resolute people. Thus, Moses got himself into great trouble – they started to murmur for having not cucumbers, onions, water, etc. By their murmuring, the Jews brought about the appearance of many serpents that bit to death a great part of them and in order to rid them, Moses made this copper serpent so that everyone could heal himself or herself by looking at it. Why had this serpent been made of copper? Copper belongs to the so called plain metals. The ancient alchemists related it to Mercury – one of the main elements of the human body and by the name Mercury, the ancients called the Greek God Hermes – the secretary of Gods, the bearer of thoughts in the world. Therefore, Moses wanted to show people that meat is not so much necessary to people and people should be wise from the point of view of their body. Moses elevated the serpent that is the lower human intellect or what we now call human egoism – one thinking of oneself only. Right are those saying, “Until not elevating the serpent, until not looking at it, one would not get well.” Now I am going to the question in a different sense: let us assume that you are lazy and are waiting for some friend of yours to give you something; you are too lazy to wash, to do your hair, etc. I am asking, would these serpents not come around you then? Then you would have to become a bit egoist, i.e. from the point of view of the old culture, from the point of view of self-preservation you would have to defend yourselves. This is a law concerning equally man, family, society, peoples and humankind. And one who comprehends this law as regards oneself can apply it for the others as well. That is why there is a parallel drawn in the Scripture: as Moses elevated the serpent, even so the Son of Man - Christ should be elevated so that man might learn the other culture. This does not mean that these two cultures are in contradiction, but they should unite into one in order to lay the beginnings of a third culture that is coming now.

It is said, “So that no one is perished, who believes in Him.” What should not perish? That, what is noble in man. Before speaking further, I will give you a scheme, i.e. the teaching of the old ones. There are the following three principles in this scheme: free will, providence and inevitability or fate. Free will is the future of man, providence is the presence and inevitability is the past of people. This is what they have taught both in Egypt and in Greece; this is what they will teach in the future. Providence is the base point from which inevitability results. When someone is in disagreement with providence, they have no free will but if they are in agreement with God and His arrangements, they have free will. Then you will solve very easily the problem why fate pursues you. Because you are in disagreement with providence. Why fate does not pursues you? Because you are in agreement with providence. Under “will”, I understand the Divine will. Three principles derive from it: the body, the human mind and the soul. The positive side of the soul is Virtue and the negative is vice; the positive side of the mind is Knowledge and the negative is ignorance; the positive side of the body is the instinct and the negative is brutality. There is another category of three things - emotions, consent and sensations. The positive side of emotions is Love and the negative is hatred; the positive side of consent is Truth and the negative is delusion; the positive side of sensations is pleasure and the negative is suffering.

And so, there are two forces: putting providence as meridian in our life, from one side is one hemisphere and from the other – the second hemisphere. From one side is the positive side of Life and from the other – the negative side of Life. Whatever you think, whatever big words you use, there is no other situation. I accept philosophy but the one that is able to build Life, to build Virtue and to create conditions for its manifestation. Under “mind”, I understand one able to create conditions by their will for the manifestation of Knowledge. Under “rational man”, I understand one able to create conditions for the manifestation of the instinct. Under “emotions”, I understand one able to create conditions for the manifestation of Love and Truth, able to give vent to senses to manifest as real sensations. And since you cut across providence, ignorance, then vice and lack of knowledge will surely appear. Therefore, each one should strive to be in agreement with the providence. As soon as you have free will the noblest germs that have been staying within you in drowsing state for millions of years, will arise. For this reason, Christ had to be elevated!

The serpent has been elevated within you when you started suffering so that you could acquire consciousness, in order to live in agreement with the providence. You are not people, you are slaves of your desires and passions and that is why you will suffer. Go into agreement with the providence and your sufferings will transform into pleasure. You should elevate Christ and He will cause just the opposite process. Coming into you, Christ will bear all Virtues. Moses has elevated the serpent in the wilderness in order to remove vice, ignorance, brutality, hatred, delusion and suffering. Christ had to be elevated like that serpent so that this Virtue, this Knowledge, this Truth, this Love and real pleasure could bear within us. Virtue is as regards the soul; Knowledge is as regards mind, Love – as regards emotions, Truth – as regards agreement and pleasure – as regards sensation. Christ had to be elevated so that people could take advantage of these great goods.

In the contemporary society, in the contemporary peoples, contradiction exists between these two cultures and that is why the war broke out. It results from that Moses has elevated the serpent that is biting the peoples now. And it should be elevated so that Christ can come – this is a living law. Do not think that in the world, people settle their fortunes by themselves. They will notice that at present God arranges their fate very easily. If the Balkan peoples had listened to God, if the Serbs had not sacked Macedonia, if the Greeks had not conquered another’s countries, if Romania had not deprived Dobroudzha, these sufferings would have not taken place. That is why God punished Serbia; that is why He is punishing Greece. And as regards Romania, He is saying, “Give it twenty five sticks now!” That is why they are beating Romania today. This is how every dishonest thief should be beaten, no matter who he is. Today, God did not drink and that is why we should be careful. He looks on all peoples as on His own sons, but He is not like the other fathers, He soothes them not and punishes them when they deserve.

I am going now to tell you a story to explain my thought. Its subject is taken from the ancient Bulgarian history, even before the Christianity. A mother loved her son very much and for that reason she always praised him, no matter what he had done – good or bad and she never found any bad thing in his deeds. She used to praise him until finally he became a great villain and for his crimes he was sentenced to death by hanging. When they brought him to the gallows, he said, “Call my mother so that I kiss her before departing.” His mother came and he said to her, “I love you very much, mother, I want to kiss you on the tongue.” The mother took her tongue out, the son bit it and said, “If not this tongue, I would have not been in this position; if you had used it properly, I wouldn’t be on the gallows…” Hence, we should not always praise one another. Romania came to Bulgaria as if to enforce peace, to bring to equilibrium, but for this reason this son is biting its and the other countries’ tongues. They ought to have said, “What happens is not good.” It is not good to seize the land of a people. The land of a people is its body, and the people living on it are its soul. Therefore, from a purely Divine point of view no one is allowed to seize the land of a people, in which it will study and exercise. And when people do not act as necessary, the sufferings come.

When I say that Christ will come, many might understand me wrong. Try to comprehend well as Christ is an inner Light. All of you have been in love. When speaking of love all are smiling and this is natural – all should smile at it. However, it is various in its manifestations. If you go by the Law of Moses, it will manifest in a certain way. For example, a husband loves his wife but he is jealous of her - this is typical for the Bulgarians – and if she only looks at some other man, he tells her, “Why are you looking at him?” The wife loves her husband, too, but she is jealous of him as well and if he looks at some other woman, she tells him, “Why did you look at her?” Why has the world been done? The evil is not in the looking but in the wishing that springs. Hence, until we have no evidence we should be afraid of nothing. I am going to give you an example from the Bulgarian folk life: one evening, a young girl dreamt that she had got married and had born a very pretty child that later had died. In the morning, the girl got up and started crying. After that, she told her mother the dream and the mother started crying too. The husband was working in the field and on returning home, he found both crying. They told him that the daughter had dreamt that she had born a child and the child had died. The father decided to get away from them and said, “I have never seen so stupid people. If I do not find more stupid people than you, I’ll not come back, but if I find more stupid than you I’ll come back.” He set off and at a place he saw a man who had trousers made for Easter but he did not know how to put them on. He was thinking to climb up a tree and to jump from there so that he could go in his trousers. The traveler called him, “Stand, you are going to hurt yourself, I will show you how to put them on but you should promise to give me these trousers.” –“I will give them to you, you only show me” – the other replied. After that, the father resumed his journey and saw at a place that wedding-guests were gathered before a house and were crying, as the bride was very tall and could not go through the door, so they had to cut her head to go in. The traveler told them, “What is this disturbance? I will make her go in if only you give me one necklace.” – “We will give you even two; you only make her go in.” Then he took the sash of her husband’s father, bound the head of the bride with it, pulled it down, she bowed her head and entered the house… Listening to this, it seems funny and stupid to you but your thoughts are often the same. We often cry for not existing children, we often put our trousers on by jumping from the tree, we often want to cut our head so that we can go in. For that reason the Bulgarians say, “Bend your knee and save your head.” Sometimes this saying is understood in bad sense but it has good sense as well. For example, when there is a flood you should not say, “I am not going to run away, this is not befittingly for me.” You must run away, as otherwise the flood will sweep you away. When a rock is falling near to you, you must run and it is not unworthy of you. There are moments when you should run away and there are moments when you should stay.

Moses elevated the serpent so that the Israeli people could see it. Some make amulets now in accordance with this law of suggestion. You can put only one thousandth part of the used salt in a small quantity of water and can cure the sick if only you put your good thought in it. Consequently, the law of suggestion is necessary and we will succeed with it, will elevate ourselves and will be good. Your thoughts should be always in a positive mood. For example, when saying, “I am going to revenge”, you are from the old culture. Then Moses will elevate the serpent for you and you will suffer. If you are from the new culture, you will elevate Christ within you and will elevate yourselves like Christ. As He has not suffered for His sins but has suffered for the sins of the other people so that they elevate themselves. You live among a people that may be not cultured, may have vices but you should be patient like Christ in order to help it. You might be nicknamed many things but this should not discourage you. I have investigated the psychology of the Bulgarians and have come to the following conclusion: along with the other good features, the Bulgarians have one distinctive feature. When someone preaches whatever teaching, the Bulgarian wants first to know whether they preach for money or not. If you preach them for money, they would say to you, “I know why you preach, for money, I can preach too” and after that, you cannot have any influence over them. The Bulgarians say, “I am not going to open my door to you, I know why you preach”; but once learning that you preach for nothing, they will say, “Why does this person preach for nothing, there is something in them”… Sure enough, the Bulgarian is right. Many times, evangelists have asked me why they have no success among this people. I tell them, “Because you preach for money.” – “How is it possible for nothing?” – “Then leave this job for the priests, you are not better than them. But if you want to have success and to have this people listening to you, do a good to it and leave it to work by itself.” I understand the word “priest” in the following sense: that one who can take the best seeds and after that meet all people and give away the seeds to them. I am asking you, what has Christ done? If one person comes among a people as Christ was among the people and starts to open the eyes of the blind, to cure the sick and so on and the entire people follows him, I am asking you, does this person do wrong? If this person is able to give all good seeds, to create peace and consent, does this person do wrong? Hence, everyone who comes to the world to bring the Divine teaching should keep in his or her mind that this is Christ within us.

Now, we are making ready for another culture, for the culture of the next world. What is the next world? The next world will be the world coming after the present one. It will be not at another place – when this world is over, the next will come. Take, for example, the theatre: there is a scene; the first act has been played, the sets are replaced, the second act is being played. The place of both acts is the same but the situation is different. Some think that going to the next world they will dwell on some other planet but you have no enough money for this, you all are poor. In order to go to Alpha Centauri[1], for example, you need 43 million levs[2], paying 3 stotinkas[3] for every kilometer. Who of you is so rich? You cannot be brought gratis to the next world, you should have money. Freely give what you have freely received but not what is yours. If they send me to distribute one thousand levs among the poor, I should give them freely as I have received them freely. But if I start laying down terms and demanding either butter or eggs or wool and so on in return, then this will be not Divine, not Christ’s teaching. Preaching the teaching of Christ, I mean the whole humankind. Speaking of priests, I speak of the whole priesthood, not of particular individuals. One law is common for all peoples, for all families. The same is the law for the Angels.

I say: that whoever has living Faith within him should not perish. Christ, of whom I am preaching, is living, He is among the people on the Earth – this is how I see Him, how I know Him, how I have talked with Him. He is among people. But someone may say that this is not sure as the Holy Fathers say different. I have talked with these people as well – all are here, on the Earth and are working. Christ said: “Go and preach and I will be with you always, to the end of the world.” Under the expression “Until I come” I understand “until I teach the people”. By this Christ said: “At present I work from within and when I go from outside I will see what has been done, whether there are any defects and then I will go in again.” It has its meaning in Heaven. Under “Heaven” I understand “A Divine world.” By this I want to tell you that this world is not only what you can see. What do you know of this world? There is a curtain in front of you and if it would be raised, you would see how many hidden things there are there! If your eyes open, you would see how many relatives of yours there are around you now – your grandmothers, great-grandmothers and so on. You would say there are dead among us. There are not dead, they are alive. In other words, there are two kinds of people alive: half dead and half alive. You are from the first – half dead. Hence, there is no past, present and future; these are just different aspects of things. Someone says, “This is past already.” What is the past? For example, I am here now and I am leaving to another town – now I am in Sofia and not long after that I can be in Plovdiv[4]. However, Sofia is not from the past, it exists simultaneously with Plovdiv; and Plovdiv is not a future, it exists simultaneously with Sofia, i.e. both cities exist now. If I climb a mountain, I will see both the past and the future and the mountain is the present. If we look at our past, it is our life that we have not finished yet. You have been knitting and knitting the life you have now and how many millions of years will past until you knit it. Consequently, there are two kinds of knitting. One is the knitting of the serpent that seduced Eve and expelled man from the Paradise. After that Christ came, climbed the Tree of life, they crucified Him and now he is saying, “Eve, take from this fruit.” What is this fruit? This fruit is the free will, the providence and the inevitability – the soul, the mind and the body. Take from Love, from the Truth and from the pleasure of the Divine life. Christ gives this fruit. As Eve became bare after eating from this fruit, so you will dress yourselves when you elevate Christ. You all will resurrect. A people that eat from this fruit will be a great and elect people. What a people is an elect one? A people in whom there is Love, Truth, Wisdom, mind and body.

When people say, “If only God takes not our land”, they are right. The Bulgarians are very practical because land is our body. Hence, in today’s war, Christ comes to say, “Everyone should resurrect and take their land.” That is why the Bulgarians are ready to die all but not give their land. So, all preachers, priests, all peoples should hold out hands to each other according to Christ’s law – not according to the law of the serpent but according to this teaching. According to the new teaching, if you are strong, you should be in support to the weak; if you are intelligent, you should teach the others who have no this knowledge. This is the only way to build our future life. It is in front of us.

Now you are waiting for Christ to come. Yes, Christ is coming, coming for you. He will come one day to knock like a bridegroom; He will send matchmakers. What do people do at present? When they have chosen the girl, they send old people, matchmakers, who sit down around the fireplace but do not go straight to the point but begin talking about other matters. They begin, for example, like this, “You have a good field, good cattle and we wish to buy them” and in the end they say that they want the girl. Then the parents of the girl begin playing up on their part, they answer not directly but say they will first size up the boy and then will give an answer… In the same way Christ will come to size up the girl. In order to become engaged to Christ, you should have Virtues, Knowledge, instinct, Love, Truth and pleasure. If you have no these things, there will be no matchmaking. You might be a member of any church but there will be not matchmaking. It is not enough to be just a member of a country, one should have rights. Hence, we should not just enter the rational Divine world but we should become citizens, should vote and elect. But great disinterestedness is required for this.

Once, a foreigner, doctor by profession, told me an experience from his life. He wished to do people good; he had been working ten years, saving all money made out of his patients in a money-box and looking for a way to help the poor. One day, a young widow with a little child came to him and said, “I am very poor, and couldn’t you help me with anything?” The doctor gave her the key of his money-box and said, “Open it and take as much as you need.” The widow lifted all the money, built a house with them and prepared a marriage portion for her daughter in order to marry her. However, the son-in-law turned to be a bad person, he ate and drunk away everything, nothing remained. But after all this the widow came again to the doctor and asked him, “Couldn’t you help me with anything?” He said, “Here is the key, take from the money-box as much as you need.” – “But there is nothing in”, the woman replied. Then the doctor said, “Now, you have to learn to work, you have to learn a different law. I have a garden, I will give you tools, you will hoe it, will take care of it and what you earn will be yours”…

Now we have also eaten everything from the Divine money-box and have to go to hoe. Christ is coming to teach us how to work. And Christ is right when saying, “One who does not work is not able to be elevated”. Personal endeavor of self-sacrifice and work is needed by all means. All three men, women and children should be provided with work. Do not leave children idle. Do not give them books that are not suitable for them – this is a hard food that they are not able to assimilate. Every author develops a certain idea in their books but this idea is not for that small boy or girl. The greatest misfortune we suffer today is the lack of honour. For a father, there is no greater misfortune than not being honoured by his son; for a mother, there is no greater misfortune than not being honoured by her daughter; for a teacher, there is no greater misfortune than not being honoured by their students and for a master there is no greater misfortune than not being honoured by his servants. Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother.” How will obedience be introduced? Obedience is a result of Wisdom whereas subjection is a result of Virtue. When we want someone to honour us, we should introduce Love in their heart. No Love, no honour; no Wisdom, no obedience; no Virtue, no subjection. Going in some way or another in the world, if you do not perceive Christ in this sense, you will not acquire anything. In this teaching, Virtue and Rationality are living matters. Virtue is a society of ghosts that are living. They are not apparitions, they are reality. If you could see a being of Virtue, your heart would start beating at once and your melancholy would disappear at once. How beautiful these beings of Virtue are! If only you can see what the eyes of someone expressing Virtue are, if only you can see what the nose, the mouth, the hair of that one are! Yes, hair indicates how virtuous we are or not. Touch lightly the bristle of a pig and you will see how virtuous it is; touch lightly the prickles of a hedgehog and you will see how good it is. Touch the mind of a person and you will see how much he or she honours; touch the heart of a person and you will see how much he or she loves. Thus, many beings of Virtues will open before your eyes, as millions of suns in the space open before the eyes of an astronomer observing by telescope whereas they remain hidden for him when looking with the naked eyes. Looking in this way, you will comprehend what Divine Wisdom is. As soon as you look through its telescope, when you see these billions of beings and enter the Divine wave of Wisdom, you will elevate yourselves. Then I will not hear you singing, “Let me be closer to God.” He, who has composed this song, has not comprehended this thing. Not we should be closer to God, but He should be by us. This God should get down from above; He should be close to me. For example, someone has fallen in the mud and someone else is coming to save; not the fallen goes to their rescuer but the one to save the fallen goes to them.

Be closer, my God, to me with Your power, wisdom and knowledge. In this way every people will be strong; in this way the Bulgarian people will be strong as well. If the Bulgarians listen to God, they will be a real people. I use the Bulgarian expression “a real person” what means very good and wise person. Everyone should bring this thought within themselves: unification and unity everywhere. Some think that I have come to disunite. No, to join, to unite – that is why God has sent me here, to the Earth. I have taken freely and I am going to give it to you freely. I want nothing else from you but to love God. And do not think anything about me. I would like that the Bulgarians accept this teaching and after that let them erase my name, let them forget me. Here they know me as Mr. Dounov but they do not know what my true name is. How will they seek me one day?

Only God is immortal. Do have hope in God; do not put your hope in people. A man should have one woman – this is the teaching, polygamy is not allowed. You should have one man, one God. And through His eyes you will look at the outer world and will comprehend that your brothers and sisters suffer too. I know you all, I see that you suffer, you have trouble, you fall, and you rise. You have fallen; I say, “Rise, mend your ways!” – “I have broken my leg.” – Never mind, it will be all right. – “I have upset my stomach a little.” – Never mind, drink a little water, take light food and it will be over. Do not worry, it will be all right. If you accept Christ’s teaching, all of you will be bold and strong. I wish that you, the Bulgarians, are good. I am speaking about you as there are other Bulgarians as well, but they are in the next world and wish to know what you do, how you live. They are in the Divine world. Everyone will be in the Divine world from where will send their own messengers. One day you will leave some others on the Earth and you will go overhead.

I wish that Christ be elevated within you! But to be elevated not in the sense of a serpent, as some girl loses her life, her heart, her mind and becomes deranged. Take this girl out, elevate her, send her to school, restore her heart and mind and cleanse her thoroughly. This means to elevate her. We have to cleanse and to elevate this Christ whom we have violated. This Christ will elevate us and will say, “Come, Bulgarians from this and from next world, who have elevated Me, who have cleansed Me, come, I will elevate you!” The serpent to be elevated – these are we; whereas to elevate Christ – this is He Who is within us. Then we will be together with Christ.

8. Lecture held by the Master Beinsa Douno on 3rd Dec.1916, Sofia

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[1] Alpha-Centauri – the brightest star system in the southern constellation of Centaurus; Alpha Centauri is the closest star system beyond our own solar system being 4.3 light-years distant (about 25 trillion miles).